are you in good hands? the highway today has taken president obama to the sunshine state. right now he's bringing his economic message to florida's jacksonville port authority. his focus today is infrastructure investments to create jobs, even if it means side stepping the inaction and infighting of washington. the president used the power of an executive order to put two jacks port projects on the fast track, making sure our ports are tiebl compete internationally and fit the supertankers that will soon pass through the expanding panama canal. of course trade means money and jobs. we start with friend of the show howard fineman, editorial

director at the huffington post media group. welcome, howard. >> hi. >> so 72% of americans right now are saying they support spending government money to put people to work and to fix crumbling infrastructure. but will this apply the pressure necessary to get the gop to act particularly on the house side to support president obama's initiatives here? >> well, i think it's highly unlikely. i think what the president is doing on this economy tour, which is going to continue, is to point out a couple of things. first of all, he wants to remind people about the good things that have happened. the disasters that were avoided and the good economic news where there is some, and there is. so he wants to do that. he wants to put the blame squarely where he thinks it belongs, which is on republican intransigents and the republicans especially in the house and the tea party people in the republican ranks who don't seem to think that the

government has anything good to do when it comes to the economy. and i think third the president wants to kind of build up his muscles politically if he will for the fight that is approaching in the fall over the budget and the debt ceiling. we're going to have another colossal confrontation this fall, and the president wants to be in the strongest political position he can be in going into that. this is really the beginning of that fight that's going to go from now through november probably. >> so, howard, the other thing is the unemployment rate is still remarkably high in communities of color and even higher when you talk about youth, regardless of race. so with the president's economic tour, the speeches that will coincide with it, what targeted approaches can we expect for the president to take this time, knowing that a rising tide didn't necessarily lift all boats, especially last congress, with not passing anything for this agenda? >> well, that's a question that we've been wondering about and focusing on at the huffington post this week. we're doing a series on blacks

in america and the progress and the lack of progress economically. what happened is that african-americans gained a lot of political clout and african-american president, lots of members of the congressional black caucus, black governors, et cetera. as jesse jackson said, to quote him, we democratized democracy. it became more global, it became more anti-union and the downward pressure not only on the middle class but the poor has really been extraordinary. and i think as the president goes around talking about the middle class, he's had some things to say about poverty, but very, very little. i understand that's kind of interesting and i think expresses the fact that he's missing a point here economically. with all the money that's flowing into keeping the poorest americans, many of which are minorities, keeping their heads above water, we are spending

billions, if not trillions of dollars. if we could end that cycle of poverty, we'd be much better off economically. but he's not really carrying that message in these speeches. >> howard, i very much look toward to seeing that huff post series. >> it's there now. >> okay, great. i'll check it out as soon as i get off the show. i've got to get off the show first, right? but harvard this week -- >> not necessarily. >> i'll look at it at a break. the important things first. so this week harvard published a map of class mobility potential by region. >> fascinating. >> and the map was very interesting that in the south, in the redder areas here you have less potential for class mobility. so you see in the south and the midwest very less potential for class mobility as opposed to the northeast and the west where you have a much more potential to be in a class above where your parents were. now, this reminds me very much of the 2012 presidential election map where the south is very red, right, and the edges

of the country, the northeast and the west are blue. it also reminds me of the map of governors by party which again is -- this is redder than the presidential map, but again the edges tend to be blue and the middle and the south tends to be red. do you make anything out of this correlation, not 100% correlation, but a fairly strong correlation between the potential for mobility and where you are -- where the people are voting? >> well, there is an overlap. as you say, it's not exact, but there's some interesting places where they do coincide. and i think it's a -- to some extent it's a national version of what the harvard study found city by city. which is where there's spread out geography and where you have separation, actual physical separation in terms of living and housing patterns between the more affluent people and the less fortunate, between oftentimes whites and african-americans or hispanics or whatever, that distance, that

literal distance, the lack of interaction leads to a separation in terms of resources, in terms of schools, in terms of transportation, in terms of getting to jobs. all the things that that harvard study focused on. the more mixed areas and compact areas do better. that's one factor. the other factor is attitude toward government. i know where you're headed with this, toure, and to some extent i think you're right. in the south in general, to overgeneralize only a little bit, the attitude is not one that government is an important indispensable actor in leveling the playing field for everybody. less aggressive government, less government spending on social services and so on, you could make a list of percentage of state budgets that go to social spending, to transportation, to infrastructure that benefits all, and you'll find that in a lot of those states you're pointing to, the numbers are lower. in a state like pennsylvania,

for example, there remains a commitment to that kind of thing. much of pennsylvania, including my hometown of pittsburgh, is doing very well in the mobility chart because there's a sense of communal responsibility of government. and i think that's the larger point that the president is trying to make on this tour, this economic tour. it's just he's dealing with a congress that is pretty much impervious to his message at this point. >> howard, as you're talking about that and talking about the role of government, we have been looking at footage of the president speaking live in florida, making the case, a very similar address, as we know, from the one he made yesterday. what do you make of this criticism we've heard from conservatives and actually many in the media of some of our colleagues around the state saying the president shouldn't be out there talking about jobs, he shouldn't be out there talking about race relations. you get the idea that people don't want the president to talk about the country's problems and challenges. it's weird. it's weird to me, anyway.

i wonder if you could unpack that critique in the contes of a white house that still feels there's a role for presidential leadership on speech making. >> well, i think at this point there are many conservatives who's just as soon abolish the presidency altogether. and i don't get it, because he is the president of all the people, whether everybody voted for him or not. he's president of the united states. he has a duty, he has an obligation to report on the state of the country. i mean it's even in the constitution we talk about reporting from time to time to the congress. and i think any -- and i think it goes to the point that right now the old -- the old republican party that was a semi partner, if you will, in the experiment of government that really began with a progressive movement with teddy roosevelt and continued on through the new deal and so forth, really much

of the 20th century, the republican party that was pretty much a part of that conversation has been taken over by people who don't want to have that conversation. they don't accept -- they don't accept the first premise, which is that there's a crucial role for the federal government in economic development, regulation and growth. they just don't buy it. they take a sort of radical, free market, almost libertarian approach to this. it's one that in pure form doesn't work, but when mixed with other forces in society, with the family, with the government, with religion and so forth, make the unique mix that is the united states. you can't just have one answer to this. and right now the mood in the republican party is a almost sort of -- any complexity, anything that smacks of complexity, they'd rather not deal with because they think it's a conspiracy of government.

the fact is the problems today are complex. let's look at the port in jacksonville. i mean world forces are making larger tankers to take things around -- and cargo ships to take them around the world. the panama canal is being expanded. trade is crucial to the united states. but if we don't have federal money to expand the port, which by the way is one of the first duties of the federal government going back to 1789, then how are we going to participate in global trade? how's that going to happen? >> howard, you raise some excellent points and thank you so much for joining us. >> of course. love to do it. up next, new this afternoon, the first poll numbers since anthony weiner's latest texting admissions. just how for giving are new yorkers? "the cycle" rolls on for this thursday in the city.

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all righty, we have new revelations this afternoon from, yes, our friend anthony weiner. he told a report ethat he couldn't remember how many women he sexts with but probably between six and ten and that includes three women after anthony weiner resigned from congress. the first poll conducted after this week's headlines has him dropping about nine points, down to second place behind city council speaker christine quinn in the race for mayor. last night at a candidate forum in that race, let's just say things got awkward. >> facebook or twitter? >> both. >> mr. de blasio. >> twitter. >> mr. lu. >> both. >> mr. thompson. >> both. >> mr. selgado.

>> i'm trying to learn how to use twitter. >> mr. weiner? >> all right then. now you know what's not awkward? wearing this t-shirt around the city. let's spin. let's start with the applause in the room, because i think what you saw there was the ugly, sad, sick, sexual and porn-related underbelly of this entire public fascination. this is not about being faithful to new york, as some of our own viewers have said and as we'll debate in this segment, this is not about whether his character in his personal life matches his public life, those are all silly and relatively transparent defenses for what this is about, which is people love sex, they love talking about sex, they love talking about other

people's sex often more than their own sex lives. any time you can move from the real issues in the new york mayoral race, which includes things like public racial profiling rather than private online profiles, and any time you get off the sewer system and on to somebody's texts, obviously the public is interested. the new york voters are interested, so i get why we're talking about it. they're talking about it. but this is not the criteria of how to choose a mayor. the fact that what we've learned now is what we already knew, is that anthony weiner has this part of his life and it has intersecreta intersected with his public life and voters may pull away from him. you've got "the new york times" and "the new york daily news" saying he should be out of the race. you've got the usual mcaur theist mafia trying to bring him down. what do we know? what we learned is what we

learned from st. augustine a long time ago. many people say to their lord, to their spouse, to their family, sometimes to their community, grant me chastity and continence, just not yet. and clearly anthony weiner needs to just cool it. i know you're in washington where all the sexual puritants can party with you. >> referencing eugene mccarthy and st. augustine, i don't know what's going on right now. we have a person who wants to be the mayor of new york city who's clearly living two lives, and one of them dominated by some overwhelming compulsion that even he cannot control to where as i said yesterday he is talking to his paramour and telling her i am a deeply flawed person. if you cannot control yourself, you cannot control the city. and, you know, if you could at least present a resume that looks at what i've delivered for the city in the past, i could be compelled to maybe overlook your

clear character problems. if you have some vision that was revolutionary, i could be argued into ignoring that. but you have none of that. so all i'm left with is this character and sort of grandstanding at these events where he smiles and everybody knows anthony weiner is a special candidate because he's so weird. but the other thing i want to dive into for a second is this sort of media subthing which some of the media have used saying that the weiner candidacy is perhaps an appropriate way to bash new york city. because if he represents new york and his candidacy or the supposed sucks of his candidacy suggests that new yorkers are immoral or something. it's a very lazy way of thinking. he does not symbolically represent the city and he will not literally represent the city. and to use anthony weiner as a way to say that new york is a wasteland, the old times square filled with porn and neon, it's not appropriate, it's not accurate. if you want to dis new york,

then come and get to know what new york is all about and do not use one weirdo candidate to represent what new york is all about and paint this broad brush about all of us. this is a great city. >> i heard your points, but on the other hand we have to look at the fact that when folks volunteer as public servants, and even in the capacity of candidates, their personal problems become, you know, limelight issues. they're not personal anymore. i think it's no different than in the entertainment industry. you see the divorces, the marriages, the break-offs in engagement and all those other things. but i think the other piece is his wife. potential first lady of new york city. >> that's not a thing. who's the first lady of new york right now? >> i said potential, potential. potential. but the point is she has very much taken on alicia's role in "the good wife." >> toure, cool it. i know it's hot down there, cool it. >> but the point is when you look at what she did the other way, which is so abnormal, she

spoke. so she wasn't just this lowly victimized wife, she really became anthony weiner's champion in that moment, much like the tv show "the good wife." so it's interesting to see how this will all play out. poll numbers have certainly been hurt, but we know how those things go. >> look, i just think she has every right to come and speak out and explain herself and they can run and they can win or lose. but we have to be honest about what this says about us. and i just think the fascination with it and the desire to bring them down is clearly a big part of this and the sexual titillation of these topics is a big part of it and part of why we are covering it in the press. >> he's brought himself down, it's not us bringing him down. he's bringing himself into the race and doing all right. there's several people running, i know we're out of time. so far he's doing all right. all we know now is what we knew to begin with. this is an issue, for some it defines him. for many other people, myself included, the reason i'm not

voting for him in the democratic primary is because he was a terrible congressman who didn't get anything done, hogged the limelight and after quitting his last job asked for a promotion. so i've got bigger reasons but sexting is low on my list. but we are not the only opinions that matter here. let's look beyond the latest sexting scandal into what people are saying over on our facebook page. we have a quote here after asking you guys what you think and here is an answer from frank rogers who says if he can't be faithful to his wife, he can't be faithful to new york. character matters. that is an important point we didn't get to in this segment. what if she sexted pictures of himself to los angeles or milwaukee. those would be big issues of faith. like us on facebook because you don't want to be left out of this important political conversation. and that's not the end of it. i'm sure we'll cover it in the future. up next, there's good news and bad news in the voting rights battle. stay with us, we have ari berman from the nation.

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and it's time to get you in the know in the news cycle. the death toll in that horrifying train crash in spain has topped 80. investigators believe excessive speed may have been the cause. a preliminary analysis indicates the train was traveling at twice the speed limit. our keir simmons is actually on the scene. >> reporter: good day to you. this is one of the worst rail accidents in europe in decades. you can see the track behind me where the trail derailed. a tight bend. the train was going fast. it is a high-speed train but it was going faster it's thought than the speed limit on this particular piece of track. and one very shocking piece of video from a fixed camera on the line shows as it comes around

the bend and the cars are thrown from the track, some thrown on top of each other, passengers were trapped. then there was the question of a fire, as first responders came in to try to rescue people, smashing windows to try and pull them from the carriages of the more than 200 people who were on board, almost all were either killed or injured. that is a measure of how devastating this crash was. back to you. >> thank you, keir. attorneys for the man accused of holding three cleveland girls captive for a decade is in plea negotiations with the feds. ariel castro faces nearly 1,000 charges, including kidnapping, rape and aggravated murder. sources close to the investigation say a plea agreement is expected soon. castro's next scheduled court date is a week from monday. the trial of accused wiki leaker bradley manning is nearing the end.

military prosecutors began their closing arguments this afternoon, calling manning an egotist who betrade the nation's trust. the most serious charge he faces is aiding the enemy, which could land him in prison for life. it could also set a very dangerous precedent for future cases involving investigative journalism in the internet age. now to developing news. two things that you must know about voting rights going on right now. first, both the north carolina state senate and house have tabled for now final votes on sweeping election law changes, including requiring voter i.d. at the polls and shortening early voting by a week. state polls show a majority of north carolinians want early voting to continue as it is. also today attorney general eric holder said the justice department will fight any changes to voting laws in texas without federal approval. remember the supreme court gutted the section of the federal voting rights act that maps out which states need preapproval, basically ending

the process until congress draws up new maps. >> although mandated by the constitution, voting rights are not always guaranteed in practice without robust enforcement, and that's why despite the court's decision, i believe we must regard this setback not as a defeat, but as an historic opportunity, for congress to restore and even to strengthen modern voting pro ti tekzs. >> ari berman is in austin, texas. he's been all over the voter suppression story from the start. great to have you back on the show. it appears that the doj is getting tough from texas and not letting the setback from the supreme court stop them. >> hey, toure, thanks for having me. it's a very significant development. you had a situation where last august the department of justice and the federal courts blocked two laws in texas in the same week for going into effect, a discriminatory redistricting map that they found -- the courts

found was enacted with discriminatory purpose and a voter i.d. law that was also judged to be discriminatory, since 600 to 800,000 registered voters didn't have that i.d. and they are disproportionately people of color. so the fact that doj is stepping in against really the worst offender when it comes to voter suppression, texas, is a very significant development. >> it struck me as significant too, definitely not an automatic move to the doj to make. if anything, the section 2 and section 3 parts of the law have been less aggressive. that's why you hear less about them in the press. tell us since you know this law very well, i know you're writing a book about the voting rights act, its history and its application to today's problems, how might this holder strategy go broader than texas or even in north carolina? >> well, i think the law really needs to be amended, ari, for him to do so because they're going to challenge it under section 3. they're going to try to bail in texas under the voting rights act. they have to show intentional discrimination, i believe, in order to get texas covered to

have to preclear their voting changes going forward. so one thing that congress could very easily do is say that to be covered under section 3, to have to clear your voting changes with the federal government, you only have to show the effect of discrimination, not the intent. and that would be able to cover a number of states going forward. as it is now, section 3 has been described as a secret weapon of the voting rights act, but it's a weapon that can only be used this very select circumstances. so we really need to make it easier to prove violations under these other sections of the voting rights act until congress gets its act together and draws a new formula for section 4 of the voting rights act. >> i'm really looking forward to your book. you've done extraordinary reporting on this issue for a long time now. let's focus in on north carolina which you've written about for the nation recently. a seemingly draconian new law that was being talked about tabled for now. i don't know if you have any intel on why it was tabled for now when it appeared that it was going to race right to the

governor's desk and get signed. but also one of the more dangerous parts of the law is that it will almost encourage citizen challenges at polling places and near polling places. that sounds like a really bad recipe. >> well, toure, this is the worst voter suppression proposal i've seen, and that's really saying a lot given everything that's gone on the last few years. you have a strict voter i.d. law. when 318,000 registered voters in the state don't have that i.d. you have cuts to early voting, even though 56% of north carolinians voted early in the last election. you have a ban on same-day voter registration, even though 100,000 used that in the last election. you have this proposal to create vigilante poll watchers, to challenge eligible voters. so pretty much everything that was good about voter turnout in north carolina, republicans are going after in the state. and they're really trying to vault ahead of texas when it comes to the voter suppression sweepstakes. that's why it's so important,

number one, for the justice department to be vigilant here. but number two for congress to really resurrect the voting rights act because north carolina ordinarily would have to clear its voting changes with the federal government. these changes would almost undoubtedly be blocked in certain circumstances. now north carolina fields like it has a green light for voter suppression. these can only be challenged after the fact. so there needs to be more federal protection to protect the right to vote given what's going on in north carolina right now. >> you raise some excellent points about the needs. when you think about what's happening on the state level with voting rights, the violations, the challenges to people's right to vote, using north carolina as moral mondays even as an example, what needs to happen on the federal level or what types of activities are you seeing to ensure that vra is reauthorized and the meat of it is put back into the measure, and how do you contrast that with what you're seeing to fight against suppress i've measures like what you see in north carolina? >> well, the moral monday

movement, which i've covered down there, has really been remarkable because they have revitalized progressive activism in the state. they have brought down the numbers of the legislature. the legislature has a 20% approval rating. i think when they leave town probably tomorrow that number will go even further down. so they have really drawn a spotlight onto what's happening in the state, the shameful condition of the state. but they can't do it alone. they need more federal protection. they need a stronger voting rights act. not only that, but we also need federal election reform so that we do something about the long lines at the polls. we make it easier to register to vote. we make it so we know every vote is going to be counted. that's what the president called for after the election. he said we need to fix that after the seven-hour lines in florida. and unfortunately since the supreme court decision, we're moving in the wrong direction. instead of making it easier for people to vote, we're making it a whole lot harder. so i hope the conversation in congress gets back to what can we do after witnessing all these

long lines, what can we do to make it easier for people to vote? it doesn't matter who wins the election, republican or democrat, let everyone have an ample opportunity to exercise their right to vote. >> what you said jumps out that they're going after early voting which is how the majority of people in north carolina voted. they're trying to restrict how the majority of people in a state voted. we've got to go so i'm going to toss it back to toure. >> thanks for that, ari. thanks for your work and your reporting. stay on that edge and let us know what's going on on the voter suppression front. up next, politics makes for strange bed fell owes, but how is it that nancy pelosi and michele bachmann and john boehner and barack obama are all on the same side? what? congress protects the nsa and ari is fired up. it starts with something little, like taking a first step.

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political opposition is building up against the nsa's surveillance operations. for now, the government is keeping its power to collect hundreds of millions of phone records from americans. but a proposal to rein in that very spying program which was first laked be edward snowden lost by just 12 votes on wednesday and the vote tally suggests bipartisan skepticism of the surveillance state. a majority of democrats and 40% of republicans backed the plan. that left president obama working with speaker boehner to beat it back. that's not something you see every day. across the country a majority of americans say they worry that the government will go too far in violating their privacy, according to the new poll and that has risen since the period after the 9/11 attacks.

nearly the same number were worried the government would not go far enough. the man who sparked this entire debate is still stuck in moscow airport. russia is considering his asylum request. to pass the time, snowden's lawyers say they gave him a copy of the local classic "crime & punishment." a story about a story to justify their own immoral or criminal actions. snowden has been in the airport for about a month. now to unpack the debate, we bring in david, a former clinton administration official. tell us, do you think we're seeing a new ripple in the surveillance debate that is possibly more about leadership versus rank and file in both parties rather than a left/right thing? >> yes, ari, but i don't think there's anything terribly new about it. i've said before on your show that you have two camps. you have the privacy hawks who are really concerned about civil liberties and privacy, and you have the national security hawks. and party lines don't line up

with those. you have people from both parties in each of those camps. what's interesting to me about this is the movement we have seen on the republican side. you've seen a lot of shifts from the national security hawk camp to the privacy hawk camp. among republicans. and that's interesting. >> david, you talked a little bit about both hawks, but i worked for one, benny thompson, who was the chair of the homeland security committee at the time and congressman thompson spoke a lot about big brother and the balance of national security versus our civil liberties. sometimes it's a very, very difficult line to toe. so the question is now where is that balance? >> it's a great question and i'll tell you something. in the area of national security, we don't have the same protection that we do in domestic law enforcement. domestic law enforcement we've got the fourth amendment. no searches and seizures without probable cause and a warrant. boom, it's in the constitution. along comes national security and look at what's been done in

the united states in the name of national security. we had japanese americans interned in camps under the name of national security. that was upheld by the supreme court. so it is dangerous when we start justifying the curtailment of personal proivacy in the name o national security. i think there's one proposal worth mentioning that's in the senate. senate richard blumenthal, a democrat from connecticut, who used to be a law enforcement man himself says let's have an advocate for the people in these secret courts to say how about we look at what the government is arguing in the name of national security. that's a good pushback. that's a procedural approach. i like it. >> david, i want you to help me understand something that i'm confused about. congressman jim sensen brbrennes now voting against the nsa nowadays. i don't think he's had some change of heart. what's really going on here? >> well, look, the congressman is not your typical republican

tea partier. he's a guy who actually was instrumental in passing the voting rights act that the supreme court just vacated and he is the republican out there saying we should put the voting rights act back in order. so i trust him more than i would your typical tea partyier, number one. number two, he acted at the same time as 99% of legislators did. they went overboard after 9/11. the only u.s. senate to vote against the patriot act was one guy, also from wisconsin, his name was russ feingold in the senate. now there's somebody who has bona fide regret over what has come of this program. it is too broad in his view. it's not what he intended at the time and he's stepping forward as a republican to say it's gone too far. >> david, that's an important point. i appreciate you knowing the legislative history. on the one hand you can say if mr. patriot act says it's too big, that raises pause. a counter view is a lot of republicans slept on this for eight years and all of a sudden

now they're upset. both sides are important. david, thanks for spending some time with us. >> thank you. up next, a segment quite unlike anything we've ever done here on "the cycle." we're talking to an author who is a self-described sociopath who's going to tell us about the traits to watch for, ego centrism, being overly charming, risk taking. wait a minute, does that remind you of anybody? hmm. at a dry cleaner, we replaced people with a machine. what? customers didn't like it. so why do banks do it? hello? hello?! if your bank doesn't let you talk to a real person 24/7, you need an ally. hello? ally bank. your money needs an ally. ♪ the middle of this special moment

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i like to dissect girls. did you know i'm utterly insane? >> great tan mark. where do you tan? >> salon. >> i've got a tanning bed at home. you should look into it. and cecilia, how is she? >> i think she's having dinner with evelyn williams. >> evelyn? great ass. goes out with that loser patrick. what a dork. >> another martini, paul? >> and that's patrick bateman right there. the creation by brett easton ellis who gave many of us our first image into the mind of a sociopath. they take risk, lack remorse or emotion, have a pen chant for deceit. can be charming but also manipulative and usually have an ego to boot. good thing i've never met anyone like that working in politics.

joining us now is a woman who is an open sociopath but is appearing in shadow with us today. emmy thomas, author of the new book "confessions of a sociopath, a life spent hiding in plain sight." m.e., me, that's an interesting name there. you're in the dark and sometimes i think we all think of sociopaths as being dangerous. how dangerous are you? >> i don't think i'm any more dangerous than most people. i think everybody has certain primitive instincts, fight or flight instincts that will be triggered in certain situations. if anything, mine are just triggered in different situations. i really think sociopaths are for the most part harmless. the fact that everybody has statistically met a sociopath but probably hasn't realized it i think is a testament to the fact that most of those interactions should have been positive. >> hi, m.e. i want to know a story from your childhood where you can say you can really put your finger on it and say at that moment i knew i

was a sociopath. >> i don't think there are any stories from my childhood. i don't think that i really knew how different i was and knew exactly in what sorts of ways i was different until probably law school. during law school we were taught to think like a lawyer, and everybody learned how to do it. it was almost like brainwashing. it's a very rational way of thinking about things. all of my classmates would do that as we talked about things unless we started talking about something very controversial, like the death penalty or abortion. and then people would abandon that and they would become very emotional about issues. and that's, i think, when i realized that i was different because i didn't have those same sorts of emotional reactions. >> when you talk about those differences, you also write about other -- even seemingly smaller things that can set people off. the type of look or stare that you have. you write perhaps the most noticeable aspect of my confidence is the way i sustain eye contact. some people have called it a predator's stare and it appears

that most sociopaths have it. tell us about that. >> yeah, i think that is probably the most distinctive characteristic that you can notice about a sociopath just by looking at them or interacting with them a very short period o. i don't know why -- otherwise a staring contest wouldn't be any sort of contest at all. if you go to the zoo, you're not supposed to stare at gorillas, it's seen as a sign of aggress, but sociopaths don't seem to have that instinct. >> m.e., i have a colleague on the hill that often talked about the river of denial. i would imagine that would probably be the case, how do you spot one in your office in your home or maybe in the chair with you? >> i actually think it's different to spot a sociopath. there are a lot of other personal types that are similar. for instance, narz cysts tend to

be very self-centered. or any sort of feelings, so if i had to guess in politics, i would guess most politicians that manifest those traits are not sociopathing, better rather na narcissists. >> m.e., it seems you have created a life for yourself that's somewhat meaningful, you're not locked away in a house somewhere. are there ways that the traits are advantageous, or is it just a constant process of managing the issues? i want i think it's a mixture of both, but there definitely are ways that the traits are advantageous. one of the advantages is there aren't that many sociopaths, maybe 1% to 4%, so people aren't really expecting your particular strategies. they are used to having

mechanisms to use against the general population, but sociopaths, they can see past them. they don't respond the same way, they have different brain structures, so those defense mechanisms aren't going to work. so the sociopath has a competitive advantage for that particular reason. >> m.e. thomas, thanks for joining us today. we'll be right back with my final thoughts. ♪ we'll share the same dream ♪ ♪ at the dark end of the street ♪ ♪ ♪ you and me ♪ you and me ♪ you and me ♪

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your purpose on earth, but as i write you today, i am angry, sassened even, because i cannot provide for you the world you absolutely deserve. the impetus for this letter is a not guilty verdict in the trayvon martin case, a black boy just like you. for all of the world to see, it became okay to shoot and kill unarmed black boys. is this more troubling than black on black violence? no. contrary to popular belief on some communities and some extreme television shows, so many throughout the country work diligently to resolve, but it removed an additional layer of protection of the law, something that you unequivocally deserved. i was prepared to tell you about the subtle challenges you may face. i was not prepared to have you experience the same type of race form, prejudice and ignorance as your forefathers did and i believed already conquered. you will stand on the shoulders of great black men within the

community, and more specifically in our family. just like i see you in frederick dougla douglass, w.e.b., nelson mandela and president obama, i also see you in the young boys and men who never had a fair chance to experience abundant life. i am writing you, because i need you to know about the rich history of your ancestors that runs through your veins, as it is far deeper that i any stop and frick, anti-affirmative action or any other discriminatory policy you will ever experience. i didn't want to tell you about how our family fought to ensure civil rights and mean-spirited people fought to strip those same rights away. from when they were first to unfortunately right now as i write you in 2013. i didn't want you to know that the only instantses where it's tolerable is when your parents

graduated from the same school or far more frequent for black kids when you can do wonders with the basketball or run the football up their field to make them money that you will never see. son, i don't think my parents wanted to tell me this, either. i think they dreaded the day like i'm dreading this moment. instead they taught me black history that never made it in any of mice history textbooks, black queens and kings from africa that look just like me and you. they told me black is beautiful, to arm me with confident, because they knew how much i would hear the exact opposite. i'm preparing to do the same with you. because of the vestiges of slavery, you may have to fight to protect how you are perceived as a black man. you are not a killer. you have not a thug, you are not barbaric. you are not ignorant, you are not violent. when the world tells you otherwise, i will be right here to remind you that you are a marvelous black man. you can be anything you want to be. you will make history by

building on our rich legancy. you will always offer a hand up. you will love this country's potential and do your part in ensuring a more perfect union. son, i hope none of this makes sense to you by the time you can understand the contents of this letter. that will mean we finally stopped singing "we shall overcome" and actual le began to love it. love always, mom. and the people said amen. thank you so much. good afternoon, it's thursday, july 25th. the gloves are off, and this president is for something. endsless -- phony scandals. >> president obama looks like he's ready for a fight. >> it's a hollow shell.

it's an easter egg, and difference to get in our way. >> the speech turned out to be all sizzle and no steak. >> it gets you right here. >> the president wants to re-slice the case. conservatives want to grow the capes. >> here they are. the card is right here. >> if you want to grow the cake, you use convection, my wife says. >> you can't just be against something, you have to be forsomething. >> eyeroll. a bipartisan eyeroll. >> i have. ♪ spread yourself ♪ whatever you do ♪ do it good this is the president's most important attempt. or in the words of speaker john boehner, it's an empty easte